Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Blogging on Writing Excercises


I read an article that said an author should try their hand at writing other formats as a writing exercise.
Any format would work. The ones they suggested were a six-word story. You need a beginning, middle, end, and ideally a lot of tension. You need to set up and resolve conflict in six specific words.

The next is poetry, which is painstaking to write. The next is Flash Fiction, defined as “short short stories” or stories between 50 and 2,000 words. Try to pack a complete story into so few words.
The fourth one is a short story. The fifth is a news article. The value ere is the comparison of styles – fiction vs non-fiction. It also it forces you to fill in the “five Ws and one H.” This is of course the “Who, What, What, When, Where, and How”.

The last one is an opinion piece. It should be novel, or at least presented in a novel fashion, that is personal to you and not derivative of anyone else’s thinking. It must exhibit original thinking. It forces you to find and use your voice.
I have written one short story, which does force you to tighten your writing. I have never tried any of the others, but I am considering the opinion piece and a news article. It might be interesting. Anything to improve my writing skills.

What about you? Does this sound valuable? Have you written in any of them? Does it help tighten your writing?

4 comments:

  1. What great suggestions, Beverley. Three years ago, I joined a group blogsite that does a holiday "anthology" of serialized short stories. Each author has 2-4 days in Dec. for her story. I hadn't written a short story since high school--back in the Dark Ages. What a challenge. Each year since, I've enjoyed that tight format. I think I'll try one of the others you mentioned.

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    1. Thanks for sharing, Diane. It's nice to know that one works.

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  2. Occasionally, I write essays. I save them for blogs or subbing to other sites. It does work!

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    1. Essays sound interesting, and great for blogs. I my add that to my list to try. Thanks for sharing.

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